Information

Gilla has a minion!

the Hydrubranch

Gilla
Legacy Name: Gilla

The

Hydrus Torrent
Owner:

Paula

Age: 10 years, 6 months, 1 week

Born: October 17th, 2013

Adopted: 1 year, 10 months, 1 week ago

Adopted: June 15th, 2022

This pet has been nominated for the Pet Spotlight!

Statistics

Level: 56
Strength: 140
Defense: 141
Speed: 137
Health: 137
HP: 137/137
Intelligence: 80
Books Read: 79
Food Eaten: 30
Job: Bottle Sorter

CREDITS

Profile template (c)

helix (get yours here);
Free background from Unsplash;
Adopted from

Lumos;
Story by

Pureflower!

Hey, Buddy. You ever heard of a recycling bin? It's literally twenty feet behind you. Lazy landlubber.

Seriously. Here I am, minding my own business and sunning myself on that one tiny section of the lake that hasn't been overwhelmed by scum and trash thrown by other lazy humans. I feel almost like a real fish, not this itchy, half-rotted monster you see before you. Next thing you know, I'm getting thumped a good one atop the head by a bunch of plastic bottle caps tied up in a plastic sack. Based on the smell, I'd guess they're the remnants of some college party. That or somebody snuck into the brewery out by Veta Lake, hoping to score a few free beers. Don't they realize yet that the place is closed?

You'll be thinking I chose this lake, that I like being the monster out of every sailor's nightmare. I don't. It's more like this lake chose me.

See, I started life as one of those flashy golden torrents, so proud of my pretty scales. I was born in an especially large pod of eggs sold to the Carnival, back in the days before prizes were exchanged for tickets. My siblings and I sat on a beat-up wooden counter, waiting for some lucky youngster to knock over a tin spaceship with a ping-pong ball and take us home.

The boy named me Gilla. He said it was for someone called "Godzilla" who was "only the coolest movie monster of all time!"

The fishbowl his parents bought me was too small but he mostly kept it clean. At first.

His mother hated the smell of scum in the water. His father was an important businessman who couldn't be getting his pristine hands dirty. The boy quickly moved on to monster trucks and forgot I even existed.

The parents meant well, I suppose. Instead of flushing me down the toilet, they released me into a "natural environment".

That being the lake you see before you. There was so much trash and scum choking the life out of this water that I couldn't breathe.

Gold became muddy brown. Gloss became patches of itchy misery. My eyes bulged and my fins shrank. I didn't need to see my reflection on the lake's surface to know that any child who saw me would run away screaming.

I wasn't going to just turn belly-up, though. Especially when my home was such a danger to other water creatures.

Birds would swoop, mistaking bits of trash for tasty morsels. Tutanis and fellow torrents would be lured to the one clean edge of the lake and find themselves mired.

I started clearing the junk out of the water, one bit at a time. I didn't pay much attention to the pherret who was watching my efforts, at first. Until I noticed her grabbing up the plastic rings and glass bottles and dragging them over to the recycle bin. Yes, that one. The one you so recently ignored.

Her name is Mynk. She lives on the greener side of Centropolis and is a big supporter of Esther's ongoing efforts to make Subeta a cleaner place. I suppose if someone as scary as me had a best friend, it would be her.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a lot of work to do.

This lake certainly isn't going to clean itself.